TikTok Banned in First US State, Bringing Legal Test to Montana

Montana Governor Greg Gianforte on Wednesday signed a law banning TikTok in the state, setting up the first legal and logistical test for broader efforts to restrict access to the wildly popular video-sharing app in the US.

The law is certain to face legal challenges on constitutional questions of free speech and restrictions on statutes that single out one company. That process will have implications for efforts by Congress to prevent TikTok from operating in the US over concerns that the platform, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., could share user data with China.

Greg Gianforte

Photographer: Eric Thayer/Bloomberg

The Montana law runs ...